


the universe i know (left me in pieces)

by wrtchedwolf



Category: Blindspot (TV)
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Gen, Memory Loss, Past Childhood Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-17
Updated: 2019-04-17
Packaged: 2020-01-15 15:19:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18501658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wrtchedwolf/pseuds/wrtchedwolf
Summary: Someone barged into the life of whoever he had been and flipped a kill switch, only it killed must-be-Roman’s mind and left only a body behind.Whoever he was, there is now only destruction in his wake.





	the universe i know (left me in pieces)

**Author's Note:**

> for alina <3

A girl smiles down at him, tender and bright and full of the childish love that comes with youth. She is the only familiar thing he knows. Her skin glows, illuminated like the light of an angel; graceful, but without the feathery white wings that mark God’s children. An angel of Earth, then, instead of Heaven, if such heavenly grace can be contained inside a single vessel. She is beautiful. He wants to reach out and touch her, but he finds he cannot move, paralyzed by fear he doesn’t understand.

 

_Why am I here? Why am I here!?_

 

_Roman_ , she murmurs soothingly, the ghost of her fingers brushing his sweat-damp golden hair from his forehead. _Roman_.

 

_Roman,_ he thinks, the name that the black-haired woman with the tattoos covering the expanse of her body had called him. _Your_ _name is Roman._

 

It doesn’t belong to him. It can’t. If it does, why does it seem so foreign? So new and unused? He cannot be Roman. He cannot be anyone. There are no memories, no feelings or thoughts that suggest he may have once been this man named Roman. Whoever he was before ending up in that car in the middle of nowhere is gone now, checked out of the hotel of his mind and left a vacancy but didn’t bother to clean up behind him. The sheets are strewn across the room, the TV caved in and the furniture so torn apart it’s hardly recognizable. Someone barged into the life of whoever he had been and flipped a kill switch, only it killed must-be-Roman’s mind and left only a body behind.

 

Whoever he was, there is now only destruction in his wake.

 

_Roman_ , the girl says again, shaking him, only there is no girl here with him in this small room with crevasses that laugh at his confusion and mock his terrified screams, but he keeps shaking, shaking, and he can’t stop it. The tremors follow the path of his veins down to his fingertips, this bodily earthquake becoming more violent with each minute that passes and there is still silence, and _Roman, Roman, Roman._ It is hard to get breath into his lungs, every inhale a struggle for life. His own body is against him.

 

“Stop,” he forces past gritted, grinding teeth. Every echo of _Roman_ is a blow to his gut that sucks the air out of his lungs, morphing his skin into a depraved red-purple from screaming without air. He is not Roman. He is not anyone. He is nobody. Nobody.

 

Nobody is curled up on the cold cement floor, pressed up against the cold cement wall from neck to tailbone, shivering as it curls around him and doesn’t let go, draining what little life is left in him as the lingering warmth in his fingertips melts away into frigid cold. Nobody’s bed is on the other side of the room, sheets torn apart, just like in his mind. Vacant. The bed is too warm, too comfortable for this unfamiliar body. The bed is made for the man named Roman, and he is not Roman. They are both empty. Vacant.

 

Another memory of the little girl with the halo crowning her deep black hair splits his skull, making him scream in a way that makes his toes curl and his muscles tense up. He’s lying on the floor just like he is now but he’s smaller, less hollow than he is now, but scared—so scared, fear gripping him tight like the fist of his mother around his neck, the sensation a phantom against his skin. He has a feeling she sits on the other side of the door, the young girl trying to offer him some semblance of comfort though she’s practically a million miles away in his mind.

 

_Remi_ , he half-calls, half-whines, retreating into himself where he could find some semblance of safety. He is not sure what is real, the dark room and the small child who cowers from whatever else waits outside with Remi or the grown man who doesn’t remember himself, aching with a loss he cannot comprehend.

 

Nobody shrieks, body jerking against the wall, as if he can force this memory out and return to nothingness. Nothingness is safe. Nothingness doesn’t hurt. If there is nothing, then there is nowhere to go, nowhere to escape to from this prison that he lays in, sweating and shaking like a drug addict going through withdrawal. He doesn’t know how he knows that, but he does. Maybe there is not nothing, after all. Maybe nothing is a lie. Nobody doesn’t understand the extent of what has been done to him.

 

They mentioned someone, the people who have put him here. Someone named _Shepherd_ who is supposedly his mother and supposedly did this to him. Thinking of her name sends a fresh wave of pain rolling across him in tidal waves, sinking into the cavern of his body that holds his nothingness. _Mama_ , his mind whispers, calling for the source of such disaster, such ruin, but also the only other person besides the little girl who feels some sort of familiar. He doesn’t remember her, but maybe she was the last one to go, clinging to the space in Roman’s heart he reserved for her as long as she possibly could.

 

Maybe he just loved her too much he remembers the pain that came with it.

 

If she did this to him, if his own _mother_ is the one who took him away, how does he deal with that? Where is she now? If she were here, would she cry for the son that she has lost? Would she mourn Roman and shun Nobody? Would she card her fingers through this imposter’s hair and soothe him so he could finally rest?

 

He supposes he won’t know. He’s here, and she’s not. Still, there is something comforting in imagining that serene picture, just a mother and a son holding each other; not enemies, but family. A boy coming home to his mother’s arms. Does he have any other family? A brother, a sister, a father?

 

The little girl must be his sister, the woman with the tattoos who claims she didn’t shoot him through the shoulder but flicks her eyes past him for the smallest fraction of a second that makes a voice in his head scream _lie, lie, lie_ , though he doesn't know why because he should trust her, if they truly are siblings. They have the same mark on their faces, to the right of their noses. Their hair is black, their skin is fair, and they both call him _Roman_ . Except his sister now knows that he is not Roman. If she comes back and calls him that again, he’ll shake his head and say _no, sister, I’m not. I’m Nobody, can’t you see? Can’t you see me, sister?_

 

_Will you take me home, Remi?_

 

Vaguely, he notes that his cheeks have dampened with tears. It has been maybe hours, maybe days since someone last came. He’s alone here, and he doesn’t know if anyone is ever going to come back. They could just leave him here to rot, and he wouldn’t think twice of it. Except now maybe he would, now that he’s had that thought. Perhaps Roman had people that cared for him, but Nobody does not.

 

If he doesn’t open his eyes, maybe he doesn’t have to be Nobody. He can be someone else in his own head, make a whole life for himself while the world outside forgets about him. If there’s someone else to replace Roman, there won’t be nothingness anymore. That’s all he needs, to become someone. A person. Someone worth caring for, so that people will come back for him.

 

That’s it then, he decides after a long while, when his trembling slows—it doesn’t stop, like a storm eased to a drizzle—and his tears turn to dried salt on his cheeks, too spent to continue their pitiful plight. He’s not going to be Nobody, he promises himself. He will be someone who has never known the cold that embodies him. Then, his sister will come back for him.

 

_Roman_ , the girl whispers, reaching out with tiny hands as if to scoop him up and bring him home like he asked for. He shakes his head. _No, not Roman. Not anymore. Will you come back for me anyways?_

 

He waits for her to say something. The girl doesn’t respond, so he creates his own response for her.

 

_Always. No matter who you are._

 

That’s it. That’s what he’ll hold onto as he waits, until the shaking stops and the pain eases and she returns to free him from his cage. Until he is not Nobody anymore.


End file.
